


I Believe In the Air I Breathe

by Snow



Category: Fairy Tales & Related Fandoms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-24
Updated: 2008-12-24
Packaged: 2018-01-25 01:42:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1624865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snow/pseuds/Snow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once upon a time there was a prince who couldn't fall, and a princess who anchored him to the ground.  This is their story.  (An adaptation of The Light Princess by George MacDonald.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Believe In the Air I Breathe

**Author's Note:**

> Huge thanks to my beta, nextian, and to the cheerleaders over in #yuletide, who kept me writing.
> 
> Written for WhiteCat

 

 

****

1\. Hoping for a Daughter

Once upon a time there was a kingdom which was verdant but not beautiful, self-sufficient but not prosperous. This kingdom had a king and a queen but no princes or princesses.

"The kingdom to the north of us has four princes and two princesses," the queen remarked one day to her husband.

"So they do," the king replied, although he had, in fact, noticed that. He would have found it hard to ignore, given that a rather large percentage of his money every year went to buy baby gifts for other people's children.

"And the kingdom to the west of us has three princes and five princesses," the queen continued.

"Good for them," the king said, wishing he could avoid the rest of this conversation.

"I want a daughter," the queen finished, and the king was grateful that at least she hadn't felt the need to catalogue all their neighbours before getting to the point.

"I am very sorry," the king said. "I do want a child just as much as you."

"No," said the queen. "You want an heir."

"I was hoping for both, actually. But of course, if I could find you a daughter I would."

"Good," answered the queen, because she knew that her husband wanted a son but it was good to know that he would not be disappointed when she got the daughter she wanted instead.

* * *

****

2\. Estranged Relations

Time passed, and the queen in the kingdom to the west gave birth to another prince, and the kingdom to the south was blessed with another princess. Finally, after many months of anticipation, the queen had a son -- as lovely a prince as ever cried.

The queen spent most of her time resting or with her son, and so the task of drawing up the guest list for the christening fell to the king. The king had a very bad memory, and would have forgotten such important things as his wife's birthday if all the servants did not know to remind him. Because he had such a bad memory, he spent a lot of time drawing up lists of things he wanted to remember. Sometimes, however, even when he made a list, the king still managed to forget an item off his list, and such was the case with the invitations to the christening. Unfortunately, rather than forgetting the nephew of a distant ruler, the king managed to forget Princess Makemnoit. This was awkward, because, really, the king ought not to have forgotten his own sister, even if he didn't have fond childhood memories of her.

Princess Makemnoit was a sour, spiteful creature. She did not make a habit of smiling at people and had let her teeth grow yellow and rotten. She spent so much time scowling that she had developed wrinkles whose only purpose was to make her scowls look more ferocious. Her ears projected straight out from her head in a way that even her wild brown hair could not cover. When she was angry, her little eyes shone blue. When she looked at someone she hated, her eyes were green. I do not know if they could turn other colors, for I do not know if she could be other than hateful or angry. Certainly not that anyone had seen. The reason it was so dangerous for the king to forget his sister was that she was awfully clever. In fact, she was a witch. She was crueler than the cruelest fairy and slyer than the slyest fox, and very distraught not to receive an invitation to her nephew's christening. When it became clear that there would be no invitation coming, she made up her mind to go to the christening anyway, and make the family quite regretful that they had forgotten her.

When the day came for the christening, Princess Makemnoit put on her best gown, brusher her hair for nearly an hour, and went to the palace, where she was happily greeted by the king, who quite forgot that he had forgotten to invite her. She took up a place near the appetizer table -- for it would not do for her to go hungry -- and waited for a chance to get near the font. When she saw her chance she threw something in the water, and then remained very polite and gracious until the water was being applied to the prince's face. Then she spun around three times and muttered the following words, too quiet for any but those closest to her to hear:

"Light of spirit, by my charms,  
Light of body, every part,  
Never weary human arms--  
Only crush they parents' heart!"  


Those close to her thought she was repeating some foolish nursery rhyme, but a shudder ran through everyone nevertheless. The king's sister turned and left as the baby started to laugh and crow. The nurse, her attention drawn back to her charge, gave a start, for she thought she was struck with paralysis: she could not feel the baby in her arms. She clasped the prince tight and he chortled.

* * *

**3\. Fly Away**

The curse the jilted aunt had put upon the child deprived him of his gravity. A tricky task, but one she had succeeded at without to much trouble. For the aunt was very clever and very well-studied, and knew all the ins and outs of the laws of gravitation as well as the ins and outs of her own boot-laces. And, as a witch, she could subvert these laws to make them behave as she wished, or not work at all. But we are more concerned with what followed the act than with how it was done.

The nurse managed to keep hold of the child through the rest of the ceremony, but shortly afterwards the first difficulty arising from the prince's lack of gravity occurred. The nurse was bouncing the baby up and down when she failed to catch him on the upward bounce, and he flew from the nurse's arms towards the ceiling. Fortunately, as he neared the ceiling air resistance first slowed and then stopped him, just shy of hitting it. Up in the air he remained, parallel to the nurse's arms, kicking and laughing amazingly. 

In terror, the nurse ran to the bell and begged the footman, who answered it, to fetch the house-steps immediately. Trembling in every limb, she climbed upon the steps, and had to stand upon the very top, and reach up, before she could catch the floating tail of the baby's long clothes.

The story of this adventure quickly spread throughout the palace, but managed it its telling, to skip the king and queen, who had never made habits of listening to gossip. When the king came to collect his son the nurse was still shaken by her own experience and so neglected to tell the king what had happened before handing him the prince. Astonished that the child had no weight, the king began to wave him up rather than down. The prince slowly floated to the ceiling as before, and remained hanging there in perfect comfort and joy, as was testified by his tiny peals of laughter.

The king stood staring up in speechless amazement, and trembled so that his beard shook like grass in the wind. After taking some time to recover his wits a little, he turned to the queen, who was just as flabbergasted as himself. "He can't be ours," he stammered.

The queen, who had suspicions of her own as to the cause of her son's flight, was very offended at the idea that she might not be able to tell her own child apart from some fairy child. "I'm fairly certain he is," she replied icily. "But we ought to have taken better care of him at the christening. People who were never invited ought not to have been present."

The king rubbed his beard and thought, while the queen continued to make worried faces up at the prince. "Oh, ho!" said the king, tapping his forehead with his forefinger, "I have the answer. Don't you see it, queen? Princess Makemnoit has bewitched him." 

"I _did_ say that," answered the queen.

"My apologies, then, my love. I must have been too distracted.--John! bring the steps I get on my throne with."

For he was a little king with a great throne, like many other kings.

The throne-steps were brought, and set upon the dining-table, and the queen, who was tallest, stood atop them. But she could not reach the little prince, who lay like a baby-laughter-cloud in the air, exploding continuously. 

"Take the tongs, dear," said his Majesty; and getting up on the table, he handed them to her.

The queen looked warily at the tongs, but gently captured her son in them and passed him down to his father.

* * *

****

4\. Not Mine to Lose

Roughly a month after his first adventures, a month in which the young prince had been watched very carefully, it was a fine summer day. It was a day designed for lazing about and doing nothing, a day for lounging in the shade and contemplating the future. The prince was lying in a bed in the queen's chamber, fast asleep. One of the windows was open, for it was noon, and a very sultry day. The queen came into the room, and not observing that the baby was on the bed, opened another window. A frolicsome fairy wind, which had been watching for a chance of mischief, rushed in at the one window, and making its way to the bed where the child was lying, caught him up, and lifting him along like a leaf, or a dandelion seed, carried him with it through the opposite window, and away. The queen, quite ignorant of the fact that the prince had ever been in the room with her, returned downstairs.

When the nurse returned to check on her charge, she supposed that the queen must have taken him, and, dreading a scolding about having left the child alone, delayed making an inquiry about him. But hearing nothing, she grew uneasy, and walked downstairs where she found the queen, reading on a couch.

"I can take the prince now," said the nurse.

"Where is he?" asked the queen, glancing up from her book, its descriptions of snow and ice not doing much to cool her down.

"Please forgive me, I'll do better."

"What do you mean?" said the queen, looking grave.

"Oh! Don't scare me like this, your Majesty," the nurse requested.

The queen now understood what had happened, and dropped her book as she fainted. 

The nurse, being a practical sort, picked up the book and set it on the table next to the queen, before running around the palace, crying for the prince. "My baby!" she screamed. "Oh, my baby, where are you?"

Everyone ran to the queen's side, looking to her for guidance. But the queen, being unconscious, could give no orders. Soon enough, however, the nurse calmed down enough to explain that the prince was missing and in a moment the palace was like a beehive in a garden, with everyone calling out the prince's name and searching for him.

In a minute the queen was brought back to consciousness by a great cheering and clapping of hands. They had found the prince fast in the branches of a cherry tree, to which the elvish little wind-puff had carried him, finishing its mischief by shaking a shower of red cherries all over the little white sleeper. Startled by the noise the servants made in looking for him, the little prince woke, and, furious with glee, hit the bottom side of an upper branch and was pushed back down to Earth.

He was watched much more carefully after this, yet it impossible to imagine any child staying out of trouble completely, let alone one a child under such peculiar rules as the prince. But there never was a baby in a house, not to say a palace, that kept the household in such constant good humor. If it was not easy for his nurses to keep hold of him, at least he made neither their arms nor their hearts ache. There was no danger of dropping him. They could (theoretically, of course,) throw him down, or knock him down, or push him down, but they could not lose hold of him and start him crying. In fact, he was a very happy child, who could never be upset by being fed late or having to go to bed.

And he was so nice to play catch with! Often several of the servants would play with the little prince. He was the ball himself, and shrieked with laughter as he was tossed by one adult to another. 

* * *

**5\. Ties of Kinship**

But with the king and queen it was different. The king had wanted an heir, and while his son brought smiles to the faces of all the strangers who met him, his parents worried about both their prince and his future. One morning, after breakfast, the king went into his counting room. He hadn't gotten far, however, before he heard a peal of laughter and lost count.

"To think," said he to himself, "that every one of these gold sovereigns weighs a quarter of an ounce, and my own son, my live, flesh-and-blood prince weighs nothing at all!" 

After all the time he'd spent dreaming of a son, the king wished the prince could have a little more physical reality. 

The queen was in the living room, knitting, when she suddenly burst out crying, and could not stop.

The king heard her sobbing. Glad of anybody, but especially of his queen, to quarrel with, he pushed his gold sovereigns into their money-box, put it away, and locked the door to the counting room before rushing into the living room.

"What is all this about?" he exclaimed. "What are you crying for, honey?"

"I can't knit," she said, slipping her work off the needles and starting to pull it apart.

The king looked at the jumble of yarn. "I can see that!" he retorted. "Maybe if you tried adding yarn, rather than taking it away."

"Oh, that's not it," sobbed the queen. "It's my son, my poor child!"

"What's the matter with him?" the king asked. "I can hear him laughing right now, which means he has not flown up the chimney or been caught up by the wind." The king sighed, seeing that he needed to reassure his wife, even when he had his own doubts. "It is a good thing for him to be light-hearted, and to bring joy to everyone he speaks with."

"It is a bad thing for him to be light-headed," said the queen, with a mind to the future and her eventual retirement. 

"'Tis a good thing to be light-handed," he said.

"'Tis a bad thing to be light-in-love," answered the queen, for as much as she loved her child, she also wanted grandchildren some day.

"'Tis a good thing to be light-footed," said the king.

"'Tis a bad thing-" started the queen, but the king cut her off.

"In fact," he said, imagining that he had been winning this argument and now needed only to finish up it up, "it is a good thing altogether to be light-bodied."

"But a bad thing altogether to be light-minded," retorted the queen, who was only now beginning to lose her temper.

The king, quite upset that his queen had not ceded the discussion to him, and that he was now in a fouler mood than before, turned to leave and attempt to count his coins.

"And it's a bad thing to be light-haired," she screamed, not worrying about the servants or her child overhearing the row. The queen herself had beautiful raven hair, while her son's hair was a pale blond, lighter even than the king's gray hair.

The king was not hard of hearing, but the queen was screaming at the top of her lungs, and he had had one thought on the top of his mind ever since he knew his child was male. So it really wasn't his fault if he misunderstood her attack as being an attack on his bloodline; it wasn't his fault if he thought she said light-heired, and took it as an insult. "My dear queen," said he, barely keeping his anger from brimming over, "it is one thing for the servants to make such an insinuation, but a man should not have to take such words from his own wife!" His voice escalated as he went, so while the king started the sentence carefully enough he was shouting by the end.

"I said no such thing!" said the queen. "I am the most unfortunate woman in the world!"

The king looked at her, and the queen gestured at her hair by way of explanation. She looked so upset that he stepped across the room to sit beside her and wrap his arm around her shoulders. "What are we to do?" the king asked.

"You could try an apology," the queen suggested.

"I-" the king looked at her for a moment. "To my sister, you mean."

"Yes."

"It's worth a try, I guess," said the king.

So he went back to his counting-room to remove some of the gold sovereigns and then went immediately to house of his sister and made a very sincere and humble apology, and offered the gold as a gift. He begged his sister to undo the spell, but she looked very grim and told him that she didn't know what spell he was talking about. She did, however, advise patience and said that maybe, if they waited long enough, the problem would take care of itself.

The king returned to his palace restless and disturbed. He was sure his sister was at fault, but he didn't have the proof. He also knew he wouldn't be able to force her to do anything even if he could show it was her. The queen tried to comfort him.

"We'll ask wise men to see if they can come up with any advice," she said. "And we'll be able to ask him when he's old enough. At the least he'll be able to tell us how he feels, and might be able to explain some of how it works. Maybe we could declare a quest and whomever can cure the prince can-"

The king was shaking his head. "I think a quest would be a very bad idea."

The queen considered. "Yeah, you're probably right."

"What about when he gets married?" the king asked.

"And his children!" replied the queen. "What if they floated as well?" Her dreams of grandchildren warped into dreams of babies too far away to see, floating like leaves outside, while she ran below trying to catch them.

"At that point they should be able to take care of themselves," replied the king. "And it will be no business of ours."

The queen just sighed.

* * *

****

6\. Negligible Stresses

The prince remained blissfully unaware of the stresses he brought to his parents, as well as the stresses everyone else had to deal with. He grew tall and straight, and, much to the consternation of his mother, his hair remained as blond as ever. He reached the age of seventeen without ever getting in a serious scrape -- indeed, he avoided the broken bones of many seventeen year-old boys because he never fell out of trees. He was a very agreeable boy, but as he grew his inability to be serious about an issue frustrated and bewildered his tutors and his parents.

"Your father won't be around forever," said one tutor, trying desperately to get the prince engaged and concerned about what was happening. "When he dies, or can't manage the kingdom anymore, you don't really want an evil uncle coming in to take over, do you?"

The prince laughed, and just laughed harder when the tutor continued to make dire warnings about the future. Although the tutor couldn't have any effect on the prince's mood, the queen found him rather depressing, and the tutor was soon dismissed.

Once, for the sake of an experiment, the prince was told that his father had gambled away all their money and that the family would now have to work as servants. The prince just laughed. He was told that he was engaged to be married to the ugliest princess in all the land, and he laughed immoderately.

When the queen cried, he said: "What a strange face mother makes. And she makes water from her eyes! Funny mother!"

Then the king, furious, whirled around and raised a hand, the prince darted around him and then pushed off the ground up to the ceiling. "Oh, wonderful father," he said between his fits of giggling, as his father tried to chase him. "It's such fun!"

As he had grown older it had become much harder to keep track of the prince, and there were a few times when the king and queen were engaged in a private conversation on some matter of state when they heard laughter above their heads. Looking up, they saw the prince floating up near the ceiling, giggling with great delight at their worried faces.

One fine springtime day, the prince was playing in the garden with one of his attendants, who held his hand to keep him from floating away, when the prince caught sight of a fox across the lawn. He did not know fear, for if the fox threatened him he could always bound away from it, but he could not convince his attendant to accompany him. When he wanted to run alone, the prince's custom was to catch up a stone in each hand, so that he might come down again after a bound. Whatever he wore as part of his attire had no effect in this way: even a heavy sword, when it thus became as it were a part of himself, lost all its weight for the time. But whatever he only held in his hands retained its downward tendency. With a laugh, the prince snatched up a stone and a heavy stick, and bounded across the lawn to observe the fox. 

* * *

****

7\. No Guarantees

After letting a long time pass without discussing their son and his future (or the hopes the king had for an heir and the queen for grandchildren), the king and queen resolved to address the issue. They sent for the prince, and he came, bounding through the hallway and swinging around the doorframe as he entered. He, with some reluctance, lowered himself into a chair and hung to the arms to keep from flitting away.

"My beloved son," said the king, "you must be aware by this point that you are not like other people."

His son looked confused, and the queen and king exchanged a look. "I have a mouth just like other people, do I not?" the prince said. "And two ears and two eyes."

"Yes, of course dear," replied the king, for he had taken upon himself the task of being comforting.

"Still," said the queen, with a glare at the king, since she would have much preferred he take up the difficult part of this conversation, "Surely you see that every other person you have met is obliged to go down after every time they go up."

"Of course mother," said the prince, for how could he not have noticed that none of the other children could keep up with him in his games.

"Would you not like to be able to walk like those others?" asked the queen.

The prince laughed. "Why? You all move so slow."

"How do you feel?" asked the queen.

"I feel fine," said the prince.

"Do you not feel you're missing something?" the queen said.

"What would I be missing?"

"A wife and children," the queen answered.

"Your duties and obligations," said the king.

The prince had been trying very hard to pay attention to his parents, but now the conversation was just too much and he rolled off the armchair and into the air, where he lay, letting his parents' discussion surround him without participating in it. His parents tried to discuss his future without him, but it was too difficult with the prince lying there, chortling, so they rang the bell and sent him away with a tutor to try once again to teach him the theory of crop rotation.

* * *

****

8\. Sure as Moonlight

The king and queen decided that they had gone long enough without asking for outside help and, although the king was still not willing to let the queen announce a quest, he did yield and invite two wise men, by the names of Nels and Enki, to come take a look at his son. 

When the two men arrived the queen set out tea and biscuit and honey, while the king told them what his son's condition was. Nels and Enki nodded politely and waited for their jobs to actually start, for they already knew everything, as, indeed, did most people who lived on the same continent as the prince. So unusual was his condition that it was still a matter of gossip, seventeen years after his birth.

Nels was a Materialist, and Enki was an Idealist. Nels was slow and self-righteous, while Enki was indecisive and flighty: the latter had generally the first word; the former the last.

"The problem with the prince," said Enki, "is that he thinks of himself as lacking gravity. And since then, he's been too forced to overthink the concept!" Enki stamped one foot and the king took a step back from the wise man. "Somehow, as a child, the concept slipped from his mind, and what he needs is something to remind him that it is around, to, as it where, startle him into accepting gravity. Perhaps if he just observed others acting under gravity he will recognize it and let it rule him. Or perhaps he simply does not recognize the Earth as governing him. He cares for nothing here, and therefore there is nothing to bind him down to this planet.

"Therefore what he must do is stand around those who observe and are ruled by gravity. And to study other subjects which will lead him naturally to an understanding of gravity. He must study architecture, sculpture, and zoology. He must understand the buildings that rest upon the ground, and he must be able to design for a solid foundation. He must know how the normal body works with gravity, how gravity dictates every pose and every action. And he must--"

"Wait! Wait up," shouted Nels, forcing Enki to yield to him. The king sighed and pondered leaving the room before deciding that he had asked these two men to travel out here, and the least he could do would be listen to them. "Surely you jest! The problem of gravity is clearly a physical one, for as a small child he would have no knowledge one way or the other as regards sticking to the Earth. Therefore there must by something wrong with him, though I can do naught but postulate until you allow me to examine the prince. However, postulate I will. 

"Clearly the prince floats away because the air in his lungs flows the wrong way around. It therefore must be necessary for us to reverse the flow of the air. I suggest a temporary stopping of the heart to let the body right itself, before the prince finally floats away from this world altogether."

"Which would result in the prince's permanent death," said Enki.

"If it did, at least he would have died in our trying," replied Nels.

The king and queen loved their son much to much to subject him to the whims of the two wise men, and, indeed, the queen was rather tempted to become a wise man herself, because she thought herself better qualified than both Nels and Enki.

* * *

**9\. Seaside Party**

Eventually, Enki decided, at least for a week or two, that the best thing for the prince would be to have him fall, so he would have experienced falling and could imagine falling independently in the future. In what Enki was convinced was a flash of genius, he decided that the prince must fall in love.

The queen was delighted by this suggestion, and immediately began knitting boots and sweaters for the grandchildren she wanted so much. As for the prince's own thoughts on the subject, if he had been consulted he would have pled ignorant to any desire to fall.

But now I must come to another curious fact about the prince and his curse. The palace was built on the shores of the loveliest lake in the world; and the prince loved this lake more than all the gold in his father's coffers and more than all wild animals who sometimes approached the palace grounds. 

One autumn evening, the king and queen took out the royal barge and brought the prince with them. The royal barge was surrounded by a great many of the courtiers in a fleet of little boats, which bobbed on the water like so many little ducks. In the middle of the journey the prince declared that he wanted to get into the lord chancellor's barge, for his son, who was of age with the prince, was in it with his father.

The king rarely felt comfortable enough to make light of his son's weight, but it had been a good day and the trees were aflame with color. Therefore, as the barges approached each other, he caught up the prince to throw him into the chancellor's barge. He lost his balance, however, and, dropping into the bottom of the barge, lost his hold of his son. The king fell into the boat, but the prince fell into the water. After a burst of delighted laughter he disappeared in the lake. A cry of horror rose from the boats. They had never seen the prince go down before. 

Half the men jumped into the lake immediately to fetch the prince out, when--hee, hoo, babble, and gush! came the prince's laugh over the water from far away. There he was, swimming like a fish, his gravity working just the way anyone else's would, and refusing to leave the water, even when the queen begged him to go and the king ordered. 

But at the same time the prince seemed more at ease than usual. For the first time he had found an activity he wanted to put all his waking hour into, something that he could focus on completely. Fall departed, leaving ice and snow in its wake, and still all the prince wanted to do was swim and experience this delightful form of gravity.

Another part of the reason the prince adored the water was that it gave him a great deal of freedom he lacked normally. For his parents had become so afraid of him floating away that he was forbidden to leave the house without a full escort, all holding strings attached to his garments. But he could be left alone the instant he got into the water.

And so remarkable was the ability of the water to restore the prince's gravity that Enki and Nels agreed in recommending to the king that he bury his son in a pile of snow. They both believed that, since the water had done so much good, the frozen water would lead to an eventual acceptance by the prince of the land and gravity in general.

The queen looked between the wise men, her husband, and her son, before declaring that she would not allow her only child to die of hypothermia. Foiled in their counsel, Nels and Enki managed to agree yet again in suggesting that if the water which fell from the sky had such a profound change on the boy, how much more could water that was produced by the prince himself. In short, the wise men told the king to make his son cry, in the hopes that he might then recover his lost gravity.

The king and queen tried everything they could think of -- short of faking their own deaths, neither the king nor the queen really wanted to know that their own flesh-and-blood might not grieve for them. Still, they did what they could. They hired an actor to show his most touching portrayal of tragedy, and the prince replied by shrieking with laughter and demanding to return to the lake to swim.

One month the queen gave her son a pet, a tamed mouse one of the cooks had liberated from the kitchen. The boy looked after the creature carefully enough, but when it grew old and died -- as mice tend to do fairly quickly -- the prince simply asked his mother if he could have another.

The king and queen despaired, for although they had no desire to make their son cry for the sake of crying, they believed the wise men and wished that the prince's gravitation could only be restored to him. 

* * *

**10\. Enter Stage Left**

It must have been about this time that the daughter of a king, who lived many hundreds of miles from the gravity-less prince set out to find the son of a queen. Many princes had come travelling to her father's kingdom to meet her, but the princess had found some fault in them all. And so her father, determined that she should marry, sent her out to find a groom worthy of her.

It was not that this princess had unbearably high standards -- but she _did_ have standards, she _was_ a princess -- but that she had yet to meet a prince who valued her as something other than a bauble. For instance, one of a series of princes her father invited to his kingdom to court her had this conversation with her:

"How gracefully the butterfly alights on that branch," said the princess, pointing out the window, for though she loved all insects she had met a few too many princes who were afraid of them to want to point out the millipede crawling on the ceiling.

"Yes," said the prince. "It reminds me of a book I just finished reading, about the fragility of nature and the pointlessness of beauty."

The princess frowned, for she had read the same book and found it awfully trite. She also frowned because, despite the prince's enthusiastic tone, she could tell that he did not believe in the pointlessness of beauty, based on the way he kept looking at her. Still, she though, maybe he was excited about the book because he was wanted to have a philosophical conversation. " _The Waspish Branch_?" the princess said, naming the book. "I didn't care for it all. I found the author's use of--"

"Likely because you couldn't understand any of the deeper points the author was making," interrupted the prince. "I hardly think needlework qualifies you for the planes on which he operated."

The princess probably would have punched him if the chaperone had been from her father's entourage, rather than the prince's. Instead she settled for a slap.

Now not all of the princes who courted the princess were as bad, but the princess had not met one yet which she actually liked and could imagine spending the rest of her life with. She was usually a beautiful, well-bred, well-behaved, generous, and intelligent young woman, as all princesses are, but she would often deliberately bait the princes who came to visit in order to see how they would react. Her father, despairing of the princess ever finding anyone, decided that she should go to the palaces of the princes to court _them_ since it would put her on more even footing with them.

The princess set out with her entourage, but had no more luck finding someone to share her life with than she had had back at her father's palace, and she was able to spend a good deal less time reading and forced to spend much more of her time on horseback, looking for the man she had become convinced could not exist.

In her wanderings the princess heard of our prince, but she could not imagine how a man who kept floating away would be better suited to treat her as an equal, and so she put him out of her head. 

Eventually the princess became frustrated, as everyone, even royalty, gets at some point, and, one day, when they were riding through a rather large, dark forest, the princess slipped away from her retinue and rode out on her own.

* * *

****

11\. Taking the Dive

After travelling for several days, the princess noticed that her horse was not travelling as fast as it had before, and she felt sorry for it and left it behind in a village she passed through. She figured that as she was not headed anywhere in particular, she could get there as fast as needed to on foot. At length she entered another wood, not the wild forest she had slipped away from her retinue in, but a civilized wood, with a path. The princess followed this path, not minding where it would lead her. 

As it grew darker, the princess began to think that she would never find the other end of the path, but she was not worried. This was, she was sure, a civilized wood, and civilized woods tended to have paths that led to actual places. She was correct, for she soon emerged on the other side of a forest onto a gorgeous lake. (The kingdom of the princess' father was land-locked, and didn't have a lake nearly as large as the one she saw in front of her, so the princess was probably more impressed than you or I would be in her situation.)

The princess, after taking in the view of the lake, soon noticed a strange sound coming across it. It was, of course, our prince laughing as he dove among the waves, but the princess did not know that. She noticed the figure swimming, and was suddenly convinced that the noises he was making were screeches as he drowned.

Without factoring in her own mass or the comparative size of the object, indeed, without thinking at all, the princess jumped into the water and swam to the prince's side to rescue him out. She hadn't known when she jumped that it was a prince she saw, but when she got close she could tell, for it does not require much observation to tell if someone is a gentleman or not. She still, however, could not tell that the prince was not actually drowning and, with some difficulty, dragged them both back to shore in a matter not quite befitting either of their ranks.

But as soon as the princess had managed to get them both to the shore the prince started to float up from the land. "How dare you!" he shouted. He was too angry with her, which was quite remarkable, given this was the first time anyone had been able to put the prince in a passion of anything but laughter. The princess, however, was less than impressed by his shouting. The floating, however, she found rather surprising.

"Get me down at once!" shouted the prince as he drifted higher, nearing the lower branches of the trees.

Having figured out that this must be the prince who lacked gravity the princess was no longer impressed, but she did feel responsible for the prince's predicament, so she climbed a tree and gave him a push to change his momentum earthward. 

"What business had you to remove me from the water?" demanded the prince when he was safely back on the ground, and as the princess was climbing down from the tree.

"I'm sorry, you looked like you were dying," said the princess.

"While I wasn't," said the prince, still rather cross. "I demand that you put me back!"

"Fine," said the princess, hoping she could just be done with this and be on her way. With a sigh, she picked up the prince and jumped into the water with her arms around him. (She would have pushed him into the water if she thought it would have worked.)

The prince, once he had recovered his breath from being below water, gave a delightful shriek of laughter and grinned at the princess. "That was amazing," he said. "Thank you."

The princess shrugged. "It's just falling in."

" _That's_ falling in? I think I like it," the prince admitted.

"It is rather a lot of fun," the princess agreed, noticing a profound change in how the prince was treating her now.

"I wish I could fall in again," the prince said.

The princess, with a smile playing across her lips, agreed to fall in with the prince as many times as he wished. They alternated between falling in and swimming until the sky was coated in stars. "I must leave now," said the prince. "I am very sorry, for this is delightful."

"It was," said the princess, and it was like a revelation for her.

"Will you be in the lake tomorrow?" the prince asked.

"I..." The princess hadn't even considered it. But she could think of no reason not to, she had quite enjoyed herself once the prince had become less stuffy in the water. "Yes, I will be."

* * *

****

12\. Thought for Keeping

The princess, to her complete surprise, found that she dreamed of the prince and their time falling into the water. She dismissed the thought from her mind and early the next morning she set out to find some food. When she returned to the lake she found the prince already on it, surrounded by the barges of the king, queen, and courtiers. The princess spent a relaxing day watching them, waiting for the other barges to depart so she could meet with the prince again.

Eventually all the other boats departed, and there was just the one dot of the prince, and the princess began to sing quietly to herself, for that was what she did whenever she had a difficult problem to solve. (This had bewildered her tutors, but when she had told one of the princes of it, he had laughed, like she was telling him a joke.)

"Prince profound,  
Feather light.  
You look at me  
And I think I maybe might--

Glass slipper,  
Still broken.  
I realize  
I haven't yet spoken--

Crystal lake,  
Surface perturbed.  
I'm not treated  
Like I'm disturbed."

And here the princess broke off, for she noticed the prince looking up at her. She flushed, but the prince didn't comment on her singing. "How was your day?" asked the prince.

"It was fine," the princess said, not used to being asked. "Are you ready for a fall now?" 

"If you don't mind, princess."

The princess froze. She had been enjoying her time with the prince partly because she did not need to pretend to act with the dignity that was appropriate of her position, and she was afraid that this was all about to change. "Why do you think I'm a princess?" she eventually asked, trying for casual and managing strained.

"Because you are a very nice young woman, princess," said the prince.

"Oh," said the princess, and she flushed.

"Can we fall in now?" asked the prince.

The princess smiled. "Yes, of course."

Night after night they met and would swim together. They would race, and, though the prince never _let_ the princess win, sometimes, when she'd been saving her strength and the prince had been swimming all day, the princess would manage to beat him, and then they would both laugh. And every night the prince asked how the princess' day was. Sometime she answered with a philosophical concept, sometimes with a plant or animal, and the prince never knew what she was talking about, but he asked anyway, and sometimes he asked her to explain.

The princess fully enjoyed the conversations she had with the prince while in the water, but she soon learned that the prince out of the water was flippant and could be cruel.

One mild late summer evening, the princess told the prince that she thought she had fallen in love with him. The prince did not laugh, but he did look puzzled, and eventually asked her if that was as much fun as falling into the water. The princess did laugh then, and nodded.

But as soon as the prince left the water he was so changed that the princess no longer wanted to spend time with him, deciding that his true nature was what she saw when they swam together. "If I marry her, I see no help for it: we must turn merman and mermaid, and go out to sea at once," the princess said to herself.

* * *

****

13\. Crippled

The prince so loved diving in the lake, and he loved it even better when he had the princess by his side. But one night he suspected that something was wrong, and he swam as fast as he could to the other side of the lake to confirm his suspicion. The princess followed (for her swimming had much improved since she had met the prince), asking the prince what was wrong. The prince did not turn his head, or took the smallest notion of her question. The prince was unable to tell what was the matter, and ended the night still feeling uneasy but without his suspicions confirmed.

The next day the prince made more observation, which strengthened his fears. He saw that the banks were dryer than they ought to be, and that the rock that poked up near the edge of the far bank from the palace had more rock showing than it really should. The prince finally explained his worries to the the princess, who marked all the shores and they looked at the marks, day after day, until finally it became clear--the lake was slowly diminishing.

The poor prince went nearly crazy. The lake, which had been his one refuge, the one place in which he actually behaved like a normal human being, was vanishing, and with it went the princess. The prince could no longer swim in the lake, and began to lose energy and will to live. People said he would not live an hour after the lake was gone.

The king and queen were desperate, and the queen proposed a challenge. (She was forbidden by the king to call it a quest.) Whoever could discover the reason for the lake's demise would be generously rewarded. Nels and Enki applied themselves, but they could not find any real answers, no matter how many different scenarios they suggested.

Now the fact is that the old princess, the king's sister, was the cause of this mischief. She could not let her nephew to find joy, and so she set about to correct the problem by putting a spell on the lake, to make it drain. 

But once she saw her plan succeeding, the witch started to worried that she might somehow be foiled, so she decided to speed the process. So she did the same spell as she had before, but this time instead of boiling up one frog into the potion she boiled five frogs and a rooster.

The next day there was no falling water to be found throughout the land. The rivers dried up, the waterfalls ceased to burble, and babies even stopped being able to cry tears. 

* * *

****

14\. A Quest

The princess, although not as distraught over the impending loss of the lake as the prince was, missed her time with him and wondered what had happened to him since he had left. Since no one was going to come to tell her, the princess resolved to go to the palace to find out.

She went first to the village to find clothing to disguise herself in, then went to see the lord chamberlain. The lord chamberlain noticed the royal bearing of the princess, and agreed to her request that she be made shoeblack for the prince. (The prince didn't already have a dedicated shoeblack because, since he didn't spend much time on the ground, he really didn't dirty very many shoes.)

The princess soon learned all she could about the prince. She learned that he'd started paying more attention to his tutors since they had met, particular those tutors who were meant to teach him philosophy. She did not ever see the prince, and was running the risk of going crazy herself from the frustration of not being able to help him.

The lake went on shrinking, until there was nothing but a few deep pools left. 

When that happened, one of the inhabitants of the kingdom was searching the lake for a clue to the queen's challenge when he saw a shiny object in the bottom of one of the pools. He dove down, and found a plate of gold with writing on it. As the peasant could not read, he rushed immediately to the palace to hand it over to the king. On one side of the plate were these words:

"Death alone from death can save.  
Love is death, and so is brave--  
Love can fill the deepest grave.  
Love loves on beneath the wave."

The king found this cryptic, but upon flipping over the plate found more words:

"If the lake should disappear, they must find the hole through which the water ran. But it would be useless to try to stop it by any ordinary means. There was but one option. A man must give himself of his own will to staunch the flow; and the lake must take his life as it filled. Otherwise the offering would be of no avail. If the nation could not provide one hero, it was time it should perish."

* * *

****

15\. Sequel to Desperation

The king did not know what to do. He was, if absolutely necessary, willing to sacrifice a subject for the good of his son (and therefore his kingdom) but he could not force anyone to give himself up. No time could be lost, however, and the king didn't manage his kingdom with pessimism, and so he put out a Pronouncement which carried the words from the gold plate.

No one, however, came forward.

It took a while for a copy of the Pronouncement to find its way to the princess, for even though she lived within the palace it was assumed by all the other servants that she could not read. When she finally got her hands on it she had to think very hard about what she was going to do.

"He will die if I do not," she thought, only barely resisting the urge to burst into song while she thought by reminding herself there were other staff around. "And I do not matter so much, because my parents have my older brothers, and as far as they are concerned I am missing anyway. Zeno, with the Stoics, would surely advocate I do what I must for the greater good of this kingdom, and it is very clear where my duty must lie. But I must know if he will be the prince he is in the water, or the prince of the air, for if he is the latter I wonder if it might not be better if this kingdom had some other ruler." The princess did not know much about the king's sister, and she did not know that the witch would inherit the kingdom should something happen to the king, queen, and prince. "All right, I must do it. But I would do it with him at my side, for I do not just sacrifice myself for an ideal, I do it for a person."

The princess set down the shoe she was polishing and ran quickly to the king's chambers, for, having made up her mind, she saw no point to delay further. So caught up was she in the decision that she had made that she knocked on the door of the king's counting room, where it was all but a capital crime to disturb him.

The king drew back the door and reached for his sword before he noticed that the servant in front of him was female and, angry as he was, he would never draw a sword on a woman.

"Please, your majesty, I am your servant," said the princess.

The king knew full well who she was (or who he thought she was, which was to say, his son's shoeblack). "My servant! What do you mean?"

"I mean I can end the draining of the lake, your Majesty."

"My--What, you?" The king looked very carefully over all hundred twenty pounds and sixty-two inches of the princess. "I believe the plate called for a man," said the king.

The princess snorted daintily. She was the one willing to sacrifice herself, so she knew she was bargaining from the position of strength. "Like it really matters. You know as well as me that you're not going to find someone else, and I would think I can serve as well as any other."

The king frowned at her, not willing to let a woman go to their death.

The princess rolled her eyes. "I'd sword-fight for the privilege and prove I can handle myself, but no one else wants it. So are you really going to throw away the best chance your son has for life?"

The king shook his head quickly. "I am much obliged to you," he said slowly, not meeting her eyes. "We must go find the hole at once."

"Please wait, your Majesty," said the princess. "I have one condition to make."

"A condition?" asked the king. "And with me! You volunteered! You insisted!"

"Please, your Majesty," said the princess. "It is not much and then I will readily climb into the hole."

"Begone!" roared the king. "Somebody else will be glad enough to take the honor off your shoulders."

"I highly doubt _that_ , or they would have already. There's only me. And it is a small condition."

"Well then what is it?"

"Only this," replied the princess. "That, since I cannot die but by being drowned at the end, and will be rather unable to occupy myself while drowning, I request the company of your son to keep me company and to feed me, so that I should not die hungry. As soon as the water is up to my eyes, he may go and be happy, and forget me."

"Is that all?" asked the king. "Such a fuss about nothing!"

The princess did not mention that he was the one who had made the fuss, not wanting him to be angry at her again. "Do you grant it, then?" she asked instead.

"Of course I do," answered the king.

* * *

****

16\. Exit Stage Right...

The princess went to dress herself for the occasion, for she had read rather a lot about dying with dignity and she was resolved to die as a princess.

When the prince was told that someone had volunteered to die to save the lake he was so filled with joy that he got up out of bed and danced with joy. He did not care who had stepped forward, only that his beautiful lake would not fade away, and he would be able to swim once more. He dressed in haste and was carried to the edge of the lake. When he could see the lake he buried his face in his hands, unwilling to see what had become of it.

The prince was carried out to a boat resting on the mud bottom of the lake. A canopy was stretched over the top to protect him from the sun, and he had plenty of food, both for himself and for the princess.

In a few minutes the princess walked up. The prince noticed her presence but could not figure out why she would be around.

"I'm here," said the princess. "Help me in the hole."

"They told me it would be a shoeblack," said the prince.

"So it is," said the princess. "When you left I became your shoeblack, because I thought that was how I could help you. But now I can be so much more useful."

The courtiers were a little shocked by the liberties the shoeblack was taking, but they were already uneasy enough with the idea of a woman dying to save the prince that they did not say anything. The courtiers stood back while the queen handed the princess down from her barge and slithered into the hole. She did not at first look like she could block it up, but soon found that if she just stretched a little she could do it.

"Now you can go," said the princess, when she was in.

"Now you can go," repeated the prince. The people obeyed him and left.

Presently a little wave flowed over the stone, and wetted one of the princess' knees. But he did not mind it much. She began to sing, carefully, not meeting the prince's eyes as she did so.

"There once was a princess  
Who danced all the dances  
not-quite-as-she-was-told.  
But she took her own chances  
And she wouldn't be sold,  
She was a princess alone.

There once was a prince  
Who couldn't stay down  
not-bound-to-the-earth.  
But he was born with a crown  
And was cursed with his mirth,  
He was a prince, not a stone.

Now when the water fills again  
Will you still remember me?  
When you swim in the lake, then  
Will you wish me free?"

"Sing again, princess," said the prince. "It makes it less tedious."

But the princess was far too distraught to sing any more. "Perhaps if you sang?" she suggested.

"No, I can't sing," replied the prince.

"Oh," said the princess, and the two waited like that, in silence, for an hour, or maybe two, the water slowly lapping up the princess' body. At last the princess could bear it no longer. "Prince!" said she.

But at that moment up started the prince, crying: "I'm afloat! I'm afloat!" as the boat lifted off lake-bed.

"Prince!" repeated the princess.

"Yes?" asked the prince, still staring at the water.

"Your father did say you would occupy me, and I am getting rather bored," said the princess.

"Did he?" said the prince. "Then I suppose I must. But I cannot sing."

The princess laughed. "You do not need to sing. We can talk."

"But I have nothing to say," said the prince.

"Well, then," said the princess, "I am feeling rather hungry, do you think you would be willing to give me a glass of red wine and a biscuit?"

"With all my heart," said the prince, and then could not get the food immediately, so surprised was he by what he had just said.

After he had fetched the biscuit and poured the wine he was forced to look at the princess, and was not at all pleased by what he saw. "Are you feeling fine?" he asked.

"Oh yes, I'm quite fine," answered the princess.

"You look tired," replied the prince.

"No, I'm fine," she said, feeling very faint. 

"If you are sure," said the prince, holding out the glass of wine for the princess.

"I'm afraid you must feed me," said the princess, looking at the wine. "I dare not move my hands for fear of losing all the water."

"Of course." The prince nudged his boat closer to the princess and held the wine out while she sipped it, then fed him bits of biscuits.

The sun went down, and the moon rose, and, gush after gush, the waters rose up the princess' body. They were up to her neck now.

"Can we fall into the water now?" asked the prince. "I bet there is enough water now."

"I will not be able to swim ever again," said the princess.

"I forgot," said the prince. "Sorry."

A little more time passed, and the water made its way up to the princess' chin. "Will you kiss me?" she asked the prince, for she did not want to die never having been kissed by the man she loved.

"I will," answered the prince, and leaned forward with a long, sweet kiss.

"Now I can die happy," said the princess, as the water edged over her bottom lip and she could speak no longer. The prince looked uneasy. The water covered the princess' top lip, and the prince began to look wild. The water covered the princess' nostrils, and one last bubble of air escaped through the water. The prince gave a yell and jumped into the lake, next to the princess.

He grabbed the princess' left arm and tugged, and managed to get one arm out of the hole, which allowed the princess' head to be lifted above the water. But the princess did not wake. The prince grew frantic now, tugging and freeing the other arm and then diving down to free the princess' feet. The princess had barely been large enough to fill the hole, and when the prince pushed her with all the strength love and water gave him she popped free.

The prince, with great difficulty because once he reached the air his gravity was gone, dumped the princess in the boat and bounded in after her. And then he seized the oars and rowed them back to the shore, though he had never rowed before. By the time the boat neared the palace there was a throng of people standing, who had all heard the prince's cry. The prince demanded that they make themselves useful, and, acting for the first time like a full prince, ordered them about, sending one for the doctor, making one light the fireplace, and assigning a great deal of others to carry the princess up the stairs to be laid in her bed.

"But the lake, your Highness!" said the chamberlain, who, roused by the noise, came in, in his nightcap.

"Go and drown yourself in it!" the prince said, propelling himself up the stairs after the servants carrying the princess.

The doctors arrived, and tried everything they could think of for a long time, with no results. The prince tried to breathe air into the princess himself, and, when that didn't work, he tried a simple kiss.

At last, when they had all but given it up, just as the sun rose, the princess opened her eyes.

* * *

****

17\. ...Together

The prince at on the floor, with his back against the wall, and let out first one tear, and then another. And, once he had started, he could not stop himself until an hour had gone by, and he had spent all the pent-up crying of his life. And a rain came on, such as had never been seen in that country. The torrents poured from the mountains like molten gold and the lake filled up to be even fuller than it had been originally, until the shores could barely keep the water in, and only then did the prince stop his flow of tears and the sky stop its flow of rain.

When the prince cried all he had with the relief of the princess' life and the vanished stress of her death, he tried to rise up from his spot on the floor and found that he could not. Finally, he managed to push himself up onto his feet, only to immediately stumble and fall. 

Hearing him fall, the princess looked up from where he was lying on the bed, to see the prince sitting on the ground, looking very perplexed. "You've found your gravity!" she exclaimed.

"Is that what this is?" asked the prince. "It isn't as much fun as you said it would be. I was much more comfortable without it."

"Really?" said the princess, and grabbed the hand of the prince to help him climb up onto the bed, and she started bouncing up and down on it. The prince fell over far more frequently than the princess, but they both often collapsed into fits of giggles. "That," the princess said, "is gravity."

"I see," said the prince. "I don't mind that so much." And, since they were both sitting, exhausted, on the bed, the prince leaned over and freely gave the princess a kiss. And the princess smiled the sweetest, loveliest smile, and was beside herself with delight.

It was a long time before the prince learned to walk. But the difficulty and frustration was made so much better by the presence of the princess. First, because the princess was very patient and happy to teach the prince to walk (although she just made him more impatient when she promised to show him how to use a sword as soon as he had mastered running), and second because the prince could now tumble into the lake as often as he pleased. Still, he preferred to have the princess jump in with him; and the splash they made before was nothing to the splash they made now.

The lake never drained again.

The prince was not inclined to take revenge upon his aunt, but the princess was of quite another mind, and took off into the forest one day. The princess returned late, giving no explanation, but the next day it was heard that the water had undermined the witch's house, and that it had fallen in the night, burying her in its ruins; whence no one ever ventured to dig up her body. There she lies to this day.

So the prince and princess lived and were happy; and had crowns of gold, and clothes of cloth, and knitted, and lots of grandchildren for the queen, all of whom had little knit sweater and not one of whom was ever known to float, not even just the tiniest bit, off the ground. 

 


End file.
